


shades of shannon

by astraea_7



Category: Lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29947488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraea_7/pseuds/astraea_7
Summary: red is bold and brash and noticeable, and she wants to be someone’s, anyone’s center of attention.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	shades of shannon

**Author's Note:**

> how shannon’s nail polish reflects her life.

her fingernails are purple the first time she paints them, slowly and shakily. her fingernails are purple because that’s the first color she saw in the store. her soon-to-be stepmother told her she only got one thing and her fingers closed around it before she even looked at anything else. she carried it home in a plastic bag and tried to paint away her anxiety with the tiny bristled brush. she isn’t sure yet if it worked.

purple speaks of hope and home and new beginnings. she hopes she gets them.

her fingernails are white and they flutter over the sleeve of her dress like a faint heartbeat. she practices her best smile in the mirror and stumbles out of the bathroom on unsteady feet. when she finally forces herself down the aisle, she stops at the front and squeezes her not-quite-stepbrother’s hand. she freezes as the woman she does not want to call her mother enters the church. instead of locking on her father, the woman’s eyes find hers and they are stone cold, shattering her hopes of a family with one glare.

her fingernails dig into her palms until the white is stained with her blood, dripping off her nails onto her dress. ruining the perfect, starched-white wedding.

her fingernails are black like her eyes, her pupils swallowing every last bit of blue as she sits with her arms wrapped around her knees in the dark. there is nothing to go back to and nothing to go towards and she’s stuck in the middle of a pitch-black tunnel. she thinks she could make it out if someone handed her a flashlight to show her the way, but she is alone in the dark. part of her thinks she deserves it.

black was never her color, but she can’t seem to remember any others.

her fingernails are red. they match her fire-engine lipstick, painted on in the shape of a smirk, as she strides through the bar. the color is her armor, applied viciously in her anger, and she only has to look at them to get her courage back. she sits at a stool and tosses back her hair and taps her nails on the countertop. red, hold on to the red, keep up the facade and someone will come to her. already she senses the men eyeing her behind her back.

red is bold and brash and noticeable, and she wants to be someone’s, anyone’s center of attention.

her fingernails are aqua like the endless waves before her and no matter which way she turns it always laps at the corners of her vision. even when she closes her eyes it’s there, the water teasing her as it dances hypnotically and draws her farther in.

she is so tired of aqua.

her fingernails are pink, but they can’t rival the rose of her cheeks. pink that pales in comparison to her thoroughly kissed lips and the feeling fluttering in her heart. pink that fades away next to the stars in her eyes, head over heels and don’t look back.

pink has always complemented her perfectly.

her fingernails are yellow the day it happens, and she remembers thinking how ironic it was afterwards. her nails are so cheerful, and the world is so bleak. she screams when she sees the body and everything else falls away. just the ice of his skin against her fingers and the sunshine polish taunting her against the pain.

yellow was a happy color, but it must have sucked up the happiness for itself because all she felt was despair.

her fingernails are colorless but they weren’t meant to stay that way. even as other things fell away from her she held on tight to the mundane activity, her last connection to her normal life. she’d scraped off the last of her old polish the day before, but abandoned her little row of bottles just as quickly because she knew what she saw and _she wasn’t fucking useless_. it all happened so fast. she was sprinting through the woods and she was lost in the feeling of the rain and she was falling but she never stopped, and it hurt and it hurt and it _hurt_ until it all just... stopped.

her fingernails are colorless. there is no emotion to be read from them, just like there is nothing to be seen on her empty face. that’s not her, not anymore.


End file.
